The Best Web Ad I’ve Ever Seen

At the same time that Microsoft aborted its Seinfeld-Gates marketing campaign after just a few commercials (more proof that Ballmer and his team have no clue what they’re doing), Apple started running what is arguably the best online ad campaign to ever hit the web. I am not sure where else the ad is running, but I saw it on the New York Times homepage and have since replayed it a few times. It is a phenomenally creative spot that brilliantly leverages the look and feel of the site its placed on, the unique and wildly powerful attributes of the web, and the incredibly successful components of the long-running Mac v. PC campaign.

For those who haven’t see the spot, PC decides that he has to write his own editorial for the New York Times to not only get people to stop switching to Macs, but also to increase awareness of the pain and suffering that Mac’s ascendancy is inflicting on PC. He pulls a newspaper story panel into his ad space which prompts Mac, who is watching from the banner ad space at the top of the Times homepage to ask him what he’s doing. The two characters, from their respective ad spaces, engage in a brief conversation and PC assumes his pain and suffering pose for the photo that accompanies his editorial. It is terrific advertising.